[. . .] and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
(Philippians 2:11)
Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.
But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some for himself.
Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
When all the people heard of Jesus’ arrival, they flocked to see him and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus had raised from the dead. Then the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus, too, for it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus. (John 12:1–11 NLT)
“Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.”
This quote, often attributed to Francis of Assisi, has a few problems. The first is that there is no record of Francis every saying or writing this, or anything similar. The closest he comes is in his rules for how the Franciscans should preach, where he writes that the words being proclaimed should be matched by the actions of the one saying them.
The second problem with this quote is not the source but the content. Duane Litfin, former president of Wheaton College, summarizes it best: “It’s simply impossible to preach the Gospel without words,” he writes, “[P]reaching the Gospel is inherently verbal behavior.”
At its core – and by the very definition of the word – the Gospel is “Good News.” It is the proclamation that the Kingdom of Heaven is readily accessible to every man, woman, and child through Jesus Christ. As Scot McKnight describes in his book The King Jesus Gospel, the Gospel “is declaring the Story of Israel as resolved in the Story of Jesus.” It is the culmination of the history of the world in the person of Jesus. He goes on to write, “If you want to read the [Good News] gospel, hear the [Good News] gospel, or preach the [Good News] gospel, read, listen to, and preach the Gospels [of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John].”
That is, to share the Good News with someone is to share with them the life, ministry, teachings, miracles, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth.
Of course, to go back to Francis of Assisi, the Gospel is more than just words, but it’s nothing without words. We can talk about Jesus and his teachings and works all hours of the day, but if we don’t put those same teachings into practice and do our best to emulate the kinds of actions he took while he was here on Earth, our Good News is hollow. “Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works” (James 2:26).
The Gospel, then, is proclaimed, but it must also be lived.
When Mary anointed the feet of Jesus with perfume, she was living out the Gospel. We can infer from other passages that Mary and her siblings, Martha and Lazarus, were actively sharing what Jesus had done for them and shared with them: they invited Jesus and his disciples into their home to allow themselves and others to soak up his teachings, and the news of Lazarus’s resurrection at Jesus’s command is not news you keep to yourself. But in addition to proclaiming the Good News of Jesus to any who would listen, Mary took it upon herself to live it out, in this case through worshiping her Savior and (perhaps unknowingly) preparing him for burial.
As we continue into Holy Week, how are you proclaiming the Gospel? And how are you living out that same Good News in your interactions with others?
Michael Benson is the communications director for the North American Baptist Conference.